“WHITE BARN”: This 1997 Platinum palladium print by Bruce Katsiff is featured in “Pieces of a Life,” on view April 11 through August 12 at the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa. (Courtesy of Katsiff Art Trust)

The 60-year photography career of legendary Bucks County arts administrator Bruce Katsiff will be on view at Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa., with the new exhibition, “Pieces of a Life,” from April 11 through August 12.

Known as the founding director who established the Michener as a regional destination for American art, Katsiff returns to its galleries as an accomplished Bucks County artist. A graduate from the Rochester Institute of Technology, Katsiff saw early success as a photographer with an appearance at Museum of Modern Art in New York for a 1968 exhibition. “Bruce Katsiff: Pieces of a Life” features 60 photographs in a retrospective on the artist, guest curated by art historian Dorothy Fisher.

“Bruce Katsiff had a monumental impact on Michener Art Museum as an institution, and we are delighted to welcome him back as a contemporary artist,” said Executive Director and CEO Anne Corso. “I hope this exhibition gives our visitors a fuller picture of the remarkable man who built such a legacy for the artistic community of Bucks County and beyond.”

“Pieces of a Life” includes selections from five distinct bodies of work, with large format portraits of the artist’s friends and neighbors from 1970s Lumberville, Pa.; selections from his famed “Nature Morte” series; collaborative platinum prints; and composite digital portraits called “Face Maps.”

“River Town Portraits,” a project Katsiff started to get to know new acquaintances after relocating from Philadelphia in 1968, came to involve trusted friends as the decade progressed. This precedent of artmaking through close connections to artists and friends continued in the landmark series “Nature Morte,” a consideration of form and mortality through photographs of posed animal remains.

Inspired by a chance encounter with a fatally wounded racoon, Katsiff pursued the limits of the platinum process to create oversized photographs that he said was an “effort to find beauty in images we have been taught to fear and avoid.” The “Nature Morte” series was possible thanks to remains gifted by friends and students, including a disinterred dog skeleton pictured in the photograph Pieces of a Life, as Katsiff developed a reputation as the neighborhood “bone guy.”

This photographic pursuit led to deeper artistic collaboration. “The Michener exhibition is the first time the public will get to see the collaborative prints made by Bruce and a number of artist friends, who edited and embellished platinum prints from the ‘Nature Morte’ series,” said Fisher. “I love these because they bring the best of Bruce’s photography into direct contact with his other legacy — a rich network of artists in and around Bucks County.”

The faces of several of those artists are on display with Katsiff’s most recent series, “Face Maps,” including painter Peter Paone, woodworker Mira Nakashima, and sculptor George R. Anthonisen. The photographer’s digital-based project reconfigures facial features into bold geometry by compiling many individual images into a single large composite.

According to a press release, beyond capturing Katsiff’s personal connections to Bucks County’s artistic communities, the Michener retrospective demonstrates his mastery of the evolving medium of photography. “Bruce’s dedication to the history of photography and the specific timeline of his career through the end of the 20th century means we can also use his work to think more deeply about photography itself,” said Fisher.

Over the span of six decades, Katsiff’s work remained at the technical forefront in the field of photography, while reflecting his position at the center of Bucks County arts during a transitional historical moment. “My pictures are always personal,” sais Katsiff. “Photography has served as my personal psychiatrist: a private tool helping me observe, record, understand, and interact with the world.”

Katsiff has experimented with a variety of styles, subjects, and media across his six-decade career. Katsiff served as chair of the Art and Music Department at Bucks County Community College for over a decade and was the founding director of Michener Art Museum from 1989 to 2012. He mastered the art of platinum and silver gelatin prints using large format cameras, and he also embraces digital photography in his more recent series. Katsiff earned his BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and his MFA from Pratt Institute. He attended postgraduate studies at Oxford University. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and is held in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Michener Art Museum. He divides his time between Bucks County and Philadelphia with his wife, Jo.

The Michener Art Museum is at 138 South Pine Street in Doylestown, Pa. For related programming and more information, visit michener
artmuseum.org.